Political Dig

26 European Countries Just Banned White Supremacist Richard Spencer

According to several news outlets, more than two dozen European countries have banned white supremacist Richard Spencer from entry.

The European Union’s Schengen Area, a group of 26 countries that allow visa-free travel, placed a five-year travel ban on Spencer this week, the Associated Press reported.

“I’m being treated like a criminal by the Polish government. It’s just insane,” Spencer told the AP on Wednesday. “I haven’t done anything. What are they accusing me of?”

Last month, Poland expressed its opposition to Spencer’s plan to attend a seminar organized around the country’s independence day and an international right-wing conference.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its strong opposition to visits to Poland by individuals who propagate views that are based on racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic ideas,” it said in a statement.

Spencer was previously banned from the Schengen Area for three years after he attempted to host a white nationalist conference in Hungary in 2014. Spencer ended up being arrested and imprisoned for three days before being deported, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Spencer and his think tank, the National Policy Institute, was also kicked out of a Maryland winery where they had gathered for a conference this week, once the owners discovered who was hosting it.